Bird flu: keeping European poultry safe

[31 January 2007 - 12h06]

Following the discovery on Monday of the highly pathogenic form of the virus H5N1 on a goose farm in eastern Hungary, the European Union is once again facing a threat. This is the first sign of the virus in Europe since August 2006.

Hungary immediately dealt with the situation by applying the health measures recommended by the WHO and by Brussels: culling of the 3,000 geese, establishment of a 3-km protection zone and of a 10-km surveillance zone around the infected farm, and the quarantining of poultry.

The good news is that the isolated virus does not have any specific genetic mutation. “The Hungarian strain is 99.4% similar to the one identified last year in the various European countries affected by the epizootic”, says the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE).

Hungary is the first European country to be infected this season. Since the beginning of winter, only nine countries have reported incidences of the disease: China, South Korea, Egypt, Indonesia, Japan, Nigeria, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam. So this is not at all the same situation as this period last year when about forty countries were affected.

Why has the epizootic declined so much? In addition to the prevention measures taken by the Member States, the answer may well like in the relatively mild climate in Asia and Europe. That is the belief of the FAO, which says that “the intercontinental propagation of the H5N1 virus by wild birds migrating from Asia to Europe and Africa was not as extensive last autumn and this winter as it was in 2005”. For one good reason: migrating birds did not really migrate in recent months...

The threat is still very real

Despite the relative clemency of the bird flu virus this winter, we must not lower our guard. It will probably take several years to eliminate the H5N1 virus from the agricultural sector. “This requires considerable determination by all the parties concerned: governments, poultry farmers and the international community”.

This will be a long-term fight, in which victory is not by any means guaranteed. Hence the FAO’s insistence that the authorities of each country must respect three essential conditions: absolute transparency about focuses of infection, direct involvement of poultry farmers in surveillance and reporting measures, and measures to compensate farmers. The main thing, concludes the FAO, is not to ban the raising of farmyard poultry “in order not to encourage the production of illegal birds”, which would be impossible to control. Since the emergence of H5N1 in 2003, 269 human cases were officially reported. Of them, 163 died, which is a mortality rate of 61%.

Source : WHO, FAO, OIE, 30 January 2007

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